Reaction Paper: Citizen (Participatory) Journalism Movement

The article “Project Muse: Scholarly journals online,” provides a compilation of essay reviews regarding the future of media politics. The essays discuss the course that conventional journalism is expected to take and the roll that Blogs are playing in mainstream media. In the book, The Media Were American, Jeremy Tunstall argues that American Media are no longer playing acting as a blueprint for international media. He notes that the largest change in the contemporary international media system is that American journalism is viewed by other countries as “too conservative, too self-satisfied, too monopolistic, and too cautions” (105). Tunstall argues that this is because American journalists are greatly concerned with providing “objective” information, have been caught fabricating stories, and are becoming less independent. The essay also discusses media politics through Stephen D. Cooper’s book Watching the Watchdog. Cooper discusses the role that blogs are playing in mainstream media, and he argues that they are not competing with traditional news sources, but rather depend on them. The essay acknowledges three points he makes about bloggers, including “blogs heavily depend on mainstream media, […] typical blogger is a news junkie, […] and blogs are symbiotically connected to mainstream news.” The essay discusses the fact that one of the main differences between blogs and mainstream media, is the fact that blogs are much more expressive than objective, providing personal opinions often formatted as an online journal.

According to the essay, traditional or mainstream media will most likely remain unchanged due to the fact that it is deeply engrained into the American cultural. While blogs are a step towards a participatory journalism movement, the article believes that the media politics are “resistant to fundamental change.”

While the previous article argues that media politics are resistant to change, the article “Community Blogging: The New Wave of Citizen Journalism,” by Julie Fanelow outlines the benefits and successes of citizen journalism. She discusses the impact that blogs are having on communities, as a way for local citizens to raise questions and discuss issues. Fanelow acknowledges the fact that many citizen bloggers do not have a background in journalism, but rather are active members of the community who are trying to make a difference.

In the article “Are Reporters Doomed?” author David Leigh stresses the importance of investigative journalism and the professional reporter. Leigh compares journalism to fast food, in that one can get fast, junk food pretty much anywhere they go. This is the same, he argues as, “fast” or “junk” journalism. With the recent increase in bloggers and citizen journalists, Leigh believes that in this case, more is less because the quality of journalism will decrease. He encourages the reader to embrace the future and to realize the importance of quality, professional investigative journalism. The author of “When the Audience does the Reporting,” holds a similar stance on citizen journalism. He argues that if mainstream media allows citizens to have power over their news, they will become less credible and more passive. He states, “The only way old media can hope to compete is by maintaining credibility and an authoritative voice.” In order to do this, the author believes that newspapers must maintain their independence from citizen journalists.

While the authors of these articles see citizen journalism as a threat to mainstream journalism, Richard Sambrook provides a different view of the issue in his article “Citizen Journalism and the BBC.” According to Sambrook, citizen journalism allows for more information to be collected and dispersed during major events. He sees audiences as being involved in distributing news and believes there is a partnership to be formed between the BBC and citizen journalists.

In my opinion, this weeks articles were very interesting and raised a lot of questions about the future of media. I especially enjoyed these articles because I have been learning about blogs and other forms of online media in my journalism classes. I recently took a class where I was required to create a blog and I was amazed at the amount of blog sites there are to choose from. While I have still had very little experience with blog, I have found that many of my friends who are studying abroad have used them to inform friends and family at home. In this case, I believe that they are a great way to relay information but as was discussed in one of the articles, it is more of a personal expression than an objective, informative coverage of an issue. It is because of this that I do not believe that citizen journalism poses a threat to mainstream journalism but rather could been seen as a partnership. According to a recent Synovate study, 15% of Americans read blogs daily and an estimated 40% of Americans visit a blog site monthly. The study also suggests that the 15% of Americans who are reading blogs daily also believe that they are an accurate source of news.